


the future whispers only

by Red (S_Hylor)



Series: Bingo Round 1 2019 [2]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Angst, Dyatlov Pass Incident, Horror, Hypothermia, M/M, Major Character Injury, Medical Inaccuracies, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 23:34:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19896217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S_Hylor/pseuds/Red
Summary: Nine of them set out on the trek over the snow, towards the mountains, along the route that Carol had plotted out. Four days hiking, along on of the most difficult routes, but they were well prepared and experienced.There's some things that cannot be prepared for.





	the future whispers only

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was the result of being a little too obsessed with the mystery of the Dyatlov Pass Incident, and also absolutely addicted to the podcast The White Vault by Fool and Scholar Productions.
> 
> Super special thanks to [brokenEisenglas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenEisenglas/pseuds/brokenEisenglas) and [quandong_crumble](http://archiveofourown.org/users/quandong_crumble/pseuds/quandong_crumble) for the beta work, proof reading and lovely, lovely comments. 
> 
> Written for my Stony Bingo card, for the square "mountains".
> 
> Title from the song "Unrest" by Oh Boy Les Mecs - which incidentally is the end credit song on the movie The Devil's Pass, which is a truly terrible found footage film based around the Dyatlov Pass Incident.

It was Carol who invited him to come. An adventure was just what he needed, she said, to take his mind off things, to get back some of his fighting spirit. He’d agreed, because saying no to Carol was almost impossible. And she’d brought Jan with her, as backup, in case he’d attempted to hide away in his workshop and refuse to interact with the world. 

He’d agreed in part for Rhodey’s sake, who should have been going. It was Rhodey’s place he took on the trip. Rhodey had insisted Carol invite him instead. Though he’d joked about not being able to get snow chains for his wheelchair, Tony knew that it hurt Rhodey that he wasn’t able to go. Rhodey had refused to talk about it though, he’d just pressed the fancy camera he’d bought for the journey into Tony’s hands and told him not to come back unless he got some great photos. 

He did take photos. Photos of the snow, photos of the distant mountains. Photos of Carol, Jan and the rest of their group all crammed into the back of the flatbed they’d hitched a ride on after the train line had run out. Photos of Steve, one of Carol’s friends. Of his crooked smiles, cheeks pink and lips chapped from the cold and wind, immortalised in black and white. So many photos of Steve. Enough that he knew he’d have some explaining to do when Rhodey saw them. 

There had been nine of them on the trek. Carol as the team leader, Jan, Steve, Bruce, Clint, Natasha, Thor, Jess and Tony himself. Nine of them who had set out over the snow, towards the mountains, along the route that Carol had plotted out. She said they could make it in four days, across the face of the mountain and through the pass and down the valley to the next town. Four days in good conditions. A week in bad conditions. They packed enough rations for ten days. 

It went well, despite the cold, the wind and the deep snow. They strapped on their snowshoes and set out through the bare trees. Day one had gone smoothly. As had day two. Tony took photos of them setting up camp, of Bruce and Thor cooking over the small portable burner they carried with them. Of Steve hunched over his sketchbook, somehow managing to draw even with his bulky gloves on. Of Steve smiling at him, wrapped in wool scarf and hat. Of Steve lugging his pack that was nearly bigger than him. 

The nights are dark and cold, long hours spent all pressed together in the one tent. Tony doesn’t mind that; he’s spent plenty of nights sleeping side by side with Rhodey over the years, of sharing his bed with others for more salacious reasons too. It is a special kind of torment though, those first two nights, with Steve asleep beside him, snoring softly, because Steve sleeps closer than he needs to, breathes against any exposed skin he can find. If Tony wasn’t so exhausted from the journey so far, it would have been a much bigger problem. Instead it was just broken sleep and distraction, the constant vigilance of not letting anything slip. He tries not to let his gaze linger too long, tries not to sit too close. He can’t slip up, can’t let anyone know what he thinks about doing, what he would do if there were privacy and safety and Steve was willing. 

He can’t though; Steve is so young, so full of life and promise and he doesn’t need someone like Tony to drag him down. Even if Steve’s smiles seem a little too fond, or he sits a little too close, or the sketches Tony had caught glimpses of in Steve’s book had all been of him. In another world, maybe. In another time. He’d be allowed to wrap his arms around Steve and hold him close and not fear the repercussions of his actions. He’d be able to feel Steve’s breath against his skin, feel those fond smiles against his lips. 

There is no other world, though. 

There is no other time. 

Tony knows that now. He’d been so focused on wishing for a life where he was safe to be himself that he didn’t wish for a life where he was just safe to be. 

It is Jess who wakes them all up. She screams, scrambling out of her bed and starts kicking and hitting them awake. The panic sets in fast. Above the noise inside the tent, they can hear the mountain screaming. A crack like a gunshot, then the roar of snow and rock coming down on top of them. The howl and rush of wind that precedes the avalanche. 

They run. Thor cuts the tent on the downhill side. Over a kilometre below them is the tree line. Carol yells at them to run for it. They grab what they can. Tony grabs his coat, Rhodey’s camera strap caught in his fingers too. No boots, he can’t find them in the panic. 

The cold hits like a wall. It bites into his exposed skin, eats away at his insubstantial clothing. Snow soaks through his socks, freezing his toes and soles and threatening frostbite. It doesn’t matter though. None of it matters. Nothing matters except making it to the tree line and finding shelter. Getting far enough in that the trees might break the momentum of the avalanche, so that they might be safe. 

What was a little frost bite when the alternative is smothering under feet of snow and never seeing the light of day again? 

They make the tree line, but it’s not enough. They keep running, fifty metres, a hundred metres into the trees, the further they go the more cover they’ll have from the avalanche. Carol yells hoarsely at them, trying to find all of them. Jess and Jan cling to each other, swirls of dark hair and pink faces in the moonlight snow. Bruce, Thor, Natasha and Clint all huddle together, leaning against the base of a tree. Tony turns in the snow, braces himself against a tree and waits. His lungs burn, the cold sucks all the oxygen out of his blood. He couldn’t run any further if he tried. None of them could. They wait for the crash of snow hitting the trees. Wait for the force of the wind buffet that comes first. 

It doesn’t come. 

What comes through the snow is a yell. A call, caught in the wind, the life sucked out of the words, but Tony recognises the voice. Steve. Steve is still out there somewhere, fallen behind. With cold limbs and empty lungs, he pushes himself off the tree and forges on back up the incline. He hears Carol following. Maybe the others as well. 

He finds Steve fifty metres back, crumpled in the snow where he’d fallen, a sickening twist to the shape of his right leg. Between Carol and himself they pick Steve up, stumbling through the snow back to the relative safety of the group. He can’t look at the disjointed shape of Steve’s knee, clearly evident through his inadequate clothing. 

They wait. Clint and Natasha had manage to clear a patch of snow and find enough wood to build a small fire. All of them huddle around the meager warmth. Tony stops caring about appearances and pulls Steve close. He holds him, having tucked Steve’s shaking and trembling body against his own, and pulls his coat around both of them. It isn’t enough. 

The avalanche doesn’t hit them. The night is soundless beyond the crackle of the small fire. It is Clint who suggests they should try to head back to the tent. It is Carol who agrees, the first to step away from the small fire and start back up the slope. 

It is Bruce and Jan who don’t get up. 

Tony has Steve’s arm slung over his shoulder, his own arm around Steve’s waist, holding him up, trying to keep Steve’s weight off of his bad leg. He doesn’t see them, just starts to follow Carol. All he can think of is getting back to the tent, getting shelter, getting warm. 

It is only when Thor yells in anguish, when Jess pleads with Jan to get up that he realises what has happened. Tony turns, Steve lets out a broken sound that could be pain, or could be grief, and that is when he sees them. Jan and Bruce, lying side by side, near the fire, unmoving. Still, cold. 

Dead. 

There is nothing they can do. 

It is so cold that Tony can barely move; it is a struggle to get one foot in front of the other. His feet went numb sometime ago. Steve’s a heavy weight against his side, needing to be almost carried. Ahead of them Carol keeps calling to them, telling them that the rest of them need to get back to the tent. Whatever threat the avalanche had posed is long past. Tony doesn't know how much time has passed, an hour, two, maybe more. Long enough for Bruce and Jan to freeze to death. The thought keeps playing in his mind, the image of the two of them, dressed in only their pyjamas, of Jan’s bare feet. Lying there dying and none of them had noticed until it was too late. Even as he walks away from them he can’t shake the image. They were good people; Jan so full of life and spirit, so excited for the journey, Bruce more quiet and reserved, the serious one, but taking in the world as if every part of it was a scientific wonder. 

They had been good people; the thought echoes in Tony’s mind. Had been. Past tense. No longer. 

They reach the edge of the trees, the snowy slope stretching out in front of them, their tent lost in the darkness above. Or perhaps buried under the snow slide that never reached them. Jess, Clint, Thor, Natasha and Carol all start back up the slope. Every step takes them further away. With Steve tucked against his side, the extra weight, Tony can’t keep up, they start falling behind. He knows though, that whoever reaches the tent first will turn back with more clothing, will come and find him and Steve somewhere on the mountain side, if they don’t make it there themselves. 

The over a kilometre trek back up the mountain slope seems impossible. Every step he feels Steve slipping from his hold, feels him dragging through the snow more than walking through it. He can hear Steve talking, but the meaning of his words gets whisked away by the wind. 

After what feels like hours of slogging uphill, he loses his grip on Steve, dropping him into the icy slush. Every part of his body he can still feel screams in relief, tells him to continue on, unburdened. He can’t though. He can’t leave Steve behind. There is a small, rational, unfrozen part of his mind that tells him he can’t. 

It’s when he is trying to pick Steve back up again, trying to get his coat wrapped back around the both of them that he hears the scream. It sounds like it might be one of the girls, but it’s hard to tell over the sound of the wind. The sound carries back down the slope, pulls the last ounce of warmth out of him and replaces it with cold fear. 

Then he hears another sound, while he kneels in the snow, trying to pick Steve up again. A howl of some kind, beastial, inhuman. So loud that it echoes off the mountains around them, the sound bouncing one way then the next, rattling inside Tony’s head and he can't tell where it came from. 

A dark shape rushes at them through the snow, barrelling back down the slope. It screams. Without thinking, Tony lifts Rhodey’s camera from where it hangs around his neck and snaps a photo. The flash is blinding as it reflects back off the snow. He doesn’t know why he took the photo. Later he thinks that it is because if he is going to die, he might as well have evidence of what kills him. When his vision clears, there is nothing in the snow in front of him, no dark shape, no scream caught on the wind. 

Then there is, but this time the shapes aren’t as dark, aren’t as large, and one of them yells at him to run. One of them that sounds a lot like Carol. Without thinking he heaves Steve up, gets him up over his shoulder and turns and runs back down the hill.

The girls are behind him, only white snow and darkness in front of him. It is almost impossible to tell which direction they are heading, just back down the side of the mountain. The tree line doesn’t materialise from the darkness though, doesn’t appear and offer a skerrick of safety. He keeps pushing through, one foot in front of the other. Steve is mumbling something, even as Tony feels him start to slide off his shoulder with every step. His hands are too numb to hold him in place. Too numb to stop him as Steve falls off his shoulder and sinks into the snow.

He hears Carol yelling at him, hears Natasha shout something, but the anguish in her voice makes her words indecipherable. Then, he hears it again, another scream that echoes off the mountains, rattles through the valley and pushes fear right to his very bones. A scream no human could have made. 

Carol catches up with him then, helps him heave Steve back up out of the snow, carrying him between them. He hears Natasha behind them, hears her gulping breaths, then hears her scream. 

He hears her scream at the same time he feels something slam into him. The force knocks him off his feet, throws him down. The damp cold bites into his skin, pushing the air right out of his lungs. His pulse is impossibly loud in his ears, the sound of footsteps marching through the snow towards him, whatever monster it was that hit him. He feels the pain in his chest, worse than the time he fell off a horse, worse than a bullet, an ache deep and vicious, like every one of his ribs are broken and his lungs are bruised. 

When the pain stops consuming him entirely, he hears Carol yelling his name, hears her ordering him to stand up. Hears her calling out to Natasha. 

Somehow he gets to his feet again, every part of his body is either numb or bright with pain. Carol shoves Steve at him again, and he has no choice but to catch him, support his weight again. There is a disgustingly loose quality to the arm he tries to drape over his shoulders. It is only at Steve’s muffled sounds of pain that Tony’s brain clears enough to realise that Steve’s shoulder is dislocated. Pulled out of its socket by the same force that had knocked Tony down. There isn’t anything he can do about it, not while they are still exposed on the slope. 

Despite the pain he pushes forward, all but drags Steve behind him. Ahead of them, Carol is helping Natasha up out of the snow. Over five metres away from where she’d been, with not a mark in the snow to indicate where she might have walked, slid or rolled. It takes a foggy moment for Tony to realise that the force that hit him must have thrown her through the air. 

It all feels like hours ago now, minutes ago, he isn’t sure. They stagger down the slope until they end up in a ditch of some kind, that cut it’s way down the mountain, Tony imagines it would be a creek bed come the summer when the snow started to melt. For now it feels like a refuge, their only shot at salvation. His chest aches something fierce. No one saw what hit him. What it was that sent Natasha flying through the air and into the snow in front of him. He has no idea how she stood up after that, though in the growing light he can see the unfocused quality to her eyes. Whether it is the cold or if it is a head injury, he has no way to determine. All he knows is that at the moment she is still alive. Natasha, Carol, Steve and himself; the only ones remaining from a nine person team. 

He pulls his coat a little tighter, looks down at the ice clinging to his socks; the ice and snow that clings to Steve’s thin legs. The way Steve’s knee still sits wrong. They should have tried to set it right again, should have splinted it. The same with Steve’s shoulder, but Tony isn’t sure any of them could manage that. His fine motor skills abandoned him long ago. 

In the small space they’ve carved out for themselves, despite their aching bodies they’d gathered pine branches to make up a floor of sorts to sit on; they wait. For what, he isn’t sure. The dawn, perhaps. Steve is still pressed against his side; Tony’s not sure he could let go of him if he tried. Knows he doesn’t want to. Carol and Natasha are similarly pressed together, Carol staring blankly out across the snow, Natasha staring at her left hand.

He ventures to ask what happened to the others, where Thor, Jess and Clint are. Carol shifts her gaze to stare at him. 

It’s a long moment before she manages to say anything, her voice grating hoarsely across her lips. “We could see the tent. We were almost there. Jess screamed. She’s screaming, and screaming and I couldn’t find her. Then, I did. I almost stepped on her. She’s just lying there, face down, in the snow and she won’t answer me. Won’t get up.” 

It’s then that he notices that Carol is wearing Jess’s jacket, has her wool hat wrapped around her hands. 

“Thor?” Tony asks when he can think of nothing else to say. What is there to say when Jess is obviously dead and Carol had salvaged her clothes. 

Carol just shakes her head, keeps shaking her head for a long time. “I don’t know.” She admits eventually, then stares back at out over the snow. “I can’t find him.”

“Clint?” He asks, but without any hope. 

Natasha just sits there, staring at her hand. She keeps staring at it, clenches her hand into a fist and doesn't uncurl it again. After a long moment, she states numbly, “Clint’s gone.” 

Tony remembers Clint and Natasha holding hands as they started trekking back up the mountain, wonders if perhaps he’d been pulled right out of her grasp. 

The thought only makes him hold Steve tighter. 

He feels Steve stir against him at one point, there’s a patch of ice clinging to his sweater from Steve’s breath. There’s a noise, a soft grating of words and it takes him too long to realise that Steve is trying to say something. It takes longer to decipher the sounds into recognisable words. 

“When we get home again, I would like to cook you dinner.” Steve croaks, whispering the words like a mantra, like he’s been saying them over and over. 

Tony lets himself think on that, imagines sitting across the table from Steve, seeing his crooked smile without his lips being chapped from the wind and cold. Imagines smiling back at him, maybe being bold enough to hold his hand across the table. In another time and another world, where he could hold Steve and it not just be about trying to keep him alive. “I would like that.” He whispers back, because he would. “I’ll bring wine.” 

“Could stay for breakfast, too.” Steve mumbles, leaning harder against him, and in that moment Tony knows what he means, the promise of his words. He knows all the things he could have if they survive this. 

He knows that they won’t. It is not the time or the world for them. 

Steve stops talking then, stops moving against him. It takes moments of stillness for Tony to realise he isn’t breathing anymore. He can’t let go of him though, just holds him tighter and closes his eyes, feels tears freezing his eye shut. 

  
  



End file.
